Monday, June 13, 2016

My Daughter May And What She Said

I cannot stop thinking about Pulse, about the people who died, the people who love them. I think about how, for so many in the Queer community, this is one of the greatest fears. And it happened. In what would be thought of as a safe place. Not just their greatest fear, but their mother's, their sister's.
      I think about how many times I have read and heard homosexuality referred to as an abomination, an aberration. I feel very strongly that this, that Omar Mateen and those of his ilk (the ones who walk out armed with guns and a heart full of hate, ready to play God) is the abomination, the aberration. Not love. Not love.
      Because isn't that the very basis of Queer rights? The freedom to love who you love and not be harmed? The freedom to be who in your heart you know yourself to be, and to love yourself? Without fearing recrimination, prosecution, or death. To love and be loved. To be human beings. That is Truth, that is Right, that is Good.
     It's so simple and yet so hard for some people to really get it, and it breaks my fucking heart.
       I believe that, no matter who or what wants to claim Mateen as their own, he acted alone and without guidance. He was one crazy individual, like all the ones who walk into churches, schools, movie theaters and open fire. This isn't an organized enemy we can build walls against, or wage war against, this is an aberration. A cancer within ourselves. 
      Things do need to change. We have made some progress against hate, but it is not enough. People keep murdering, and thinking they are righteous, but they are not righteous. They are crazy and they are angry. 
       I'm going to wrap this up, because this is not a rant or a speech and I have no answers at all. I am only writing because I am shaken and I am angry and I am so very very sad.
      Hold your loved ones to you, tell them that you love them. Most of all, look out for the lonely ones, and I mean that in all the ways I can.

12 comments:

  1. your one sentence--'a cancer within ourselves' is right.
    i dont know why or how our country became this way, but it has.
    I will adhere to "who am I to judge?"
    The Pope is right, leave it to God not man.
    I sure wish everyone else would too.

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  2. I made a light comment on my blog last week about a client saying he went to the United church "until the queers took over". At the time I was angry but now I just feel outrage. He and his wife spout love for everyone but it isn't true. It is just fucking self-righteousness.

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  3. religion is just fucking evil. religion teaches that only certain expressions of human sexuality are natural and normal. it teaches that anything else is not just weird or hard to comprehend but an abomination! something that must be despised and wiped out. war is an abomination, torture, hate, allowing citizens to own military assault weapons, mass fucking murder. that is the abomination. not two people of the same sex who find love or any of the many permutations of human sexuality that are natural because they appear naturally in nature (I mean really, how simple is that). that man learned his hate from his father and his religion both of which taught him that his violence was not only acceptable but demanded.

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  4. I'm sure you've seen the reports since that Mateen had been to the club before and had been active on a gay dating app. His ex-wife says he may have been gay. If so, it would explain a lot -- his anger and apparent self-hatred, driven by his own guilt and the uncompromising position against homosexuality demanded by his religion. Not to diminish his actions, but in addition to being a perpetrator, he may also have been a victim -- of religious homophobia. It will be interesting to see how this story unfolds.

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  5. Thank you for this, Mary. And also what Steve said, today and yesterday.

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  6. He was murdering himself. His original culture punishes homosexuality with death. His religion generally agrees, even in its modern incarnation.

    I think his soul was deeply conflicted, he was filled with rage and self hate.

    That this is what we're creating, instead of just letting love be free... this is the deep tragedy of the human condition. Arbitrary rules and the crushing of the self. I suspect he was made as well as born, a product of society's messes. He wanted to wipe out what he was; someone who desired other men and also what he could not be; someone who could love them freely.

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  7. Steve, he's definitely a victim too. And ill - I agree with Mary - no sane person desires massacre.

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  8. Yes. The word "shaken." We are all so very shaken.

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  9. Thank you, Mama. I love love love you.

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  10. I don't know what to say. I just feel so bad for the ones who died, the ones who lived through the horror, the parents, and all the LGBT community throughout the world whose security was also shaken, no matter how far away they live. The destruction is enormous.

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  11. I was a bit confused. Did May write this? All the words from your kids have hit me hard. I don't quite know what to do with myself but try to take more action and tell those I love how much I love them. I am so tired of these massacres. I hear the killer was gay himself and had so much rage inside himself for what he could not accept about himself that he commit this act of horror. So he kills everyone else? Not his father? I am so sad and mad and hopeless.

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  12. Thank you for this. I've been feeling completely unmoored and hopeless about humanity.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.